The Age of Forgiveness and Social Media, Which Always Wins

So, there are sins for which there is no redemption: John Galliano, originally from Gibraltar, subjected himself to an auto-da-fé reminiscent of Torquemada’s era, renouncing in writing – and with a newfound tone of contrition – a celebratory exhibition of his work at the Met due to the anti-Semitic and anti-Asian slurs he made fifteen years ago whilst under the influence of substances and psychological pressurepsychological pressure regarding the sale of skirts and handbags – a situation no one would ever believe, and which in fact drove someone else to suicide. A career spanning decades at Givenchy, Dior and Margiela which, at the very least, must be acknowledged as having been fundamental not only to fashion but to society in this century, and the analysis and exhibition of which had been scheduled by the museum for May 2027. This exhibition—and this is another detail worth bearing in mind—was not something Galliano had sought or asked for, but had been offered to him by Anna Wintour, after whom the operational arm of the Costume Institute has been named for years now, and who has been his patron ever since his very first fashion show, inspired by the French post-revolutionaries, the Incroyables, back in the 1980s. Regarding Galliano’s resignation—an act of great responsibility that demonstrates how the 66-year-old of today bears no resemblance to the drug-addled, sweat-drenched 40-year-old we used to encounter backstage during his final years at the helm of Dior’s creative direction—the head of content at the Condé Nast group spoke on Monday evening, issuing a brief statement of ‘total support’ for his decision – a move which journalists at the "New York Post", who had been relentlessly hounding the story for days, described as "fawning", that is, servile or even obsequious – a carefully chosen expression that no one would like to have levelled at them, and which highlights the period of uncertainty this woman is experiencing following the protests that accompanied her latest Met Gala, sponsored by Jeff Bezos, but also the atmosphere in New York, where Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a Muslim activist, was asked to stay away from the 25th-anniversary commemorations of 11 September by the victims’ families, and Julie Menin, Speaker of the New York City Council and the first Jewish woman to hold the post, felt compelled to publish on Meta the letter dated 27 August in which, after noting that the city contributes to the museum’s programmes with a sum that will amount to $3 million by 2027, she asked the Met’s leadership to ‘reconsider’ the exhibition, even though it did not go easy on its subject on any issue and, indeed, planned to publish the legal documents relating to the two infamous incidents of racism in 2010 and 2011 for which he was tried and convicted: “At a time when our city is witnessing a resurgence of anti-Semitism, anti-Asian hate and other forms of intolerance, I find the decision to honour someone who has repeatedly demonstrated such behaviour to be entirely inappropriate.”

Menin’s letter sought to suggest an appropriate form of ‘compensation’ for the designer in recognition of his ‘undisputed’ contribution to fashion – for example, an ‘education’ programme in which his work would be framed within a different context, one more suited to a story such as his; but for him to be “honoured” with a dedicated exhibition – as has so far only happened, during their lifetimes, to Yves Saint Laurent and Rei Kawakubo – was not acceptable. Following the letter from the spokesperson for the City of New York, it was clear that all the Met’s sponsors would withdraw their funding and support, rendering the exhibition unsustainable not only politically but also financially, and jeopardising the Met Gala itself on the ‘first Monday in May’ – which, incidentally, and not insignificantly, in 2027 will fall on the evening of the 3rd, when Yom HaShoah begins at sunset – observed on 4 May as the ‘Day of Remembrance for the Holocaust and Heroism’, in memory of the six million Jews exterminated by the Nazis. Galliano’s celebration, in which he had glorified the gas chambers whilst under the influence of alcohol, would have created an overlap of symbols – let us even call it a clash – that was, frankly, untenable. Consequently, the designer took a step back; one that was certainly not explicitly requested of him, but which he was inevitably bound to take. “Repentance is not achieved through an exhibition,” he admitted in his statement, published on his personal Instagram profile as part of a strategy that was undoubtedly pre-arranged. He did, however, reflect on the journey he has undertaken in recent years and the weight of the words he had used. Underlying the text was a sense of teshuvah, or ‘return to purity’ – which is not merely repentance, inevitably associated with guilt, but hope and the realisation that the essence of the human being is, and remains, good.

The Met was aware of this series of passages – which had been taught to him during his many meetings over the past few years with Jewish cultural associations as part of a rehabilitation process that, as is evident, has not yet been officially recognised, but which the ADL, a powerful US organisation combating anti-Semitism, has described as ‘sincere’ – and had researched them and was preparing to address them throughout the exhibition. However, it had certainly not assessed with the necessary caution that the tensions surrounding Israel’s war against Hamas would become so dramatic as to spill over even into a story such as this (how many public figures, whom we continue to admire for their works of art, films and, indeed, clothes, are there? How often have we managed to separate an artist’s career from their private life? Is it permissible to do so and, above all, is it right?). In the last few hours, the New York Post has published an account of a meeting between the Met’s senior management following the designer’s resignation, from which it is clear that this affair is indicative of a series of other problems, including a lack of curatorial autonomy and the excessive influence of ‘donors’ in decision-making. The Galliano affair also reveals something else: namely, that even if on this side of the Atlantic ‘woke’ culture appears to be in remission – and if we had read, or perhaps translated more accurately, the statements made by AOC (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) – we would know that this is not the case; the tensions tearing the Western world apart over the Middle East allow for no respite or compromise on any front. Not even in the world of fashion, which – as we shall never tire of repeating – has nothing to do with clothes and everything to do with how the world is perceived. And so no, Galliano, already convicted in France, is not (yet? ever?) entitled to forgiveness, not even after confronting his own demons and working on his prejudices with Jewish mentors. Not everyone has been granted this fate. After the Second World War, Coco Chanel – who had been a true collaborator, and many of us have read the letter in which she denounced her majority shareholders, the Wertheimers (who, incidentally, still own the company), in the hope that the business would be nationalised as ‘non-Aryan’ and she would regain possession of it – went into hiding in Switzerland for a decade: she was not sure that her friendship with Winston Churchill – who had intervened to secure her release after her first interrogation – would be enough.

She returned when it seemed to her that the courts had stopped hounding her, launching a scathing attack on Christian Dior for having ‘caged women once again’; in 1954 she invented the mini-suit, which Matthieu Blazy still reinterprets today to the delight of the nation’s textile manufacturers, and here we all are, singing her praises and extolling her merits – of which there are many, needless to say. And yet. Many have forgotten her Nazi sympathies and her rabid anti-Semitism, the German spy with whom she was having an affair and with whom she lived at the Ritz, and numerous other controversies as far back as the 1950s; let alone today, when footballers name their daughters after her, hoping for a social rise that is, in fact, rather laughable, considering the background of Henri Albert Chanel—a street vendor by trade—and his ambitious daughter, who made her debut in high society as Etienne Balsan’s kept woman, and was not even the only one. Today the Wertheimers themselves (pronounced in the French manner, ‘vertemer’) have no interest whatsoever in people knowing just how ruthless Mademoiselle could be – not least because their grandparents and uncles, who were well aware of her character, had taken precautions and, before fleeing to the United States, had arranged the sham sale of the company to an Aryan whom the Nazis idolised, the aeronautical engineer Félix Amiot.

If we were to apply the same logic as ‘no pardon after serving a life sentence’, the Met should not have dedicated a major exhibition to Chanel in recent decades, and today it would also have to ask itself questions about many other designers – for example, regarding the treatment of animals on photo shoots. But back then there were no social media; instead, there was a desire to forget and start afresh. Now that everything is measured in ‘likes’ and ‘shares’, the off-putting videos of unknown people asking, ‘So if Galliano had said that about Black people – that he’d have liked to see them hanging from trees – would we be holding the exhibition or not?’, the exhibition will not go ahead; for a while, actresses and models will avoid wearing the most precious pieces from the Dior and Margiela archives bearing his signature – forget about Rihanna dressed as a popess at the 2018 Met Gala for the ‘Heavenly Bodies’, and the brands will learn yet another lesson about the difficulty of pleasing everyone – as the global economy demands – in a world where everyone protests about everything, sometimes justifiably as in this case, but also simply for the sake of stirring up controversy and racking up a few likes. It is not just because of the intrusiveness of merchandising departments that fashion has become so tedious; in recent weeks we have heard tales of charity projects going down the drain so as not to offend the sensibilities of health ministries in distant countries and to reignite old rifts between East and West over Covid vaccines, about collections scrapped because of graphic motifs that seemed to echo the traditions of little-known ethnic groups, stirred up by influencers on the hunt for contracts, and all manner of misdeeds and mishaps which, as a communications director confesses on condition of anonymity, make it truly impossible to create anything new. The industry is treading water in the obvious, trying to parry blows that nobody could have seen coming. This is how the clichés and banalities that plague communication and fashion production today come about. Out of fear, out of inertia.